Laced to Crown
by after.a.hard.day
Summary: Finally it seemed the spell was broken. But when you dream of the dead, there is no freedom - only a endlessness when sleep and conscious bleed together. Itachi x Kurenai. Death and all that begins.


******Title:** _Laced to Crown._**  
****Characters:** Uchiha Itachi, Yuuhi Kurenai. Uchiha Itachi x Yuuhi Kurenai, Sarutobi Asuma x Yuuhi Kurenai. **  
****Summary:** Finally it seemed the spell was broken. But when you dream of the dead, there is no freedom - only a endless when sleep and conscious bleed together. **  
****Rating:** M ( themes of death, suicide, abortion and timeloops)**  
****Notes:** First written Prompt from my 50 ItaxKure prompts. The poem referenced briefly is "_She Walks in Beauty_" by Lord Byron.  
**Prompt #47** _They found her body..._**  
****standard disclaimer applies.**  


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* * *

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_Lao Tsu dreamed last night that he was a butterfly - he went through the whole cycle of one, and his dreams as a butterfly he dreamed that he was a man called Lao Tsu. _

_Did the man dream up the butterfly? Or did the butterfly dream up the man?_

_

* * *

_

Detective Uchiha Itachi had never had such an urge to throw up from a crime scene in his life, but this... this rewrote the finely crafted lines of the book.

Somehow, this woman looked perfect, strung up like a doll or a paper fairy. All those dark words of poetry came to mind: "___And on that cheek, and o'er that brow; So soft, so calm, yet eloquent_,"_._ Brown hair, so dark it was black in this lack of light, fell over her shoulders, half way down her back. Whatever she had done to it before her death, it still held form, like women always pray that their hair would do - no matter the troubles faced.

She was like a ripple, everything from her blood red eyes, with its delicate pattern, to the hair that waved out, carrying it down the long satin skirt, to her shoes - one still hanging from her toe, the other clattered to the floor.

How soon after her death, Itachi didn't know.

It was perfect to behold. She was such a beautiful woman, so bright and red and full of life, but in death, a doll, corpse-white and corpse-perfect, like only corpses could be.

Well it would have been perfect, but her slowly seeping blood that trickled along the inside of her leg, curling over her toes, jarred it all back to bitter reality. A steady _dripdripdrip _like the water in a fountain that had long since run dry. Now this woman had, this victim, all of 31 years old, crafted like porcelain - had smashed and shattered. Her eyes turned upward, as if to commend her soul to a god Itachi wasn't sure existed.

"What a fucking nightmare."

"It's not suicide."

"Obviously. Her eyes aren't popping out of her head, and her neck isn't broken, un. Though I don't get why she's bleeding, but my bet is poison."

"I'd agree; there shouldn't be any blood for poison that would leave the rest of her so clean."

* * *

Itachi had killed in his life - not a high amount, but enough for him to say it was familiar. Things go wrong in hard situations when you least expect it, and Itachi prided himself on being able to subdue without killing. Sometimes, however, some killers he was sent to take down because some victims were so traumatised. Reason was no longer applicable to their situation and guns were drawn and it came down to whoever pulled their trigger first.

He faced them in his dreams. The dead and him. He would be still, standing in a river. Barefoot, dress pants rolled up to his knees. Feet placed evenly on smooth stone. There would just be the river in a hundred miles of blackness.

The banks were filled with faces, and hands and bodies, and legs and feet, scrambling over each other - all the dead, before Itachi, fighting to reach him. Itachi was not scared, no terror bit at him, this wasn't a nightmare. Instead he closed his eyes. It had always been this way in this dream. He closed his eyes and the dead would come.

They don't speak, but he knows, he knows very well what they are saying. The way they stand, their eyes open and calm. Most of all they say it with their hands, palms out to him, fingers soft and relaxed.

They say: _Welcome, brother. We have been waiting._

_

* * *

_

"You were right, it's poison." Itachi held up the glass. The wine that the victim had drunk was sitting on the kitchen bench. Bottle knocked over. It had looked like a blood stain until he smelt it. Within the glass, and without the stirring, separation had occurred and along the top of the red wine (redredred, everything here was _red_) was now covered in a fine film. "She drank it before she died."

"Then why did she hang herself as well?"

Itachi said nothing and Deidara led the photographer to the main bedroom.

After the formalities had been taken care of, they stood and waited for the body to be taken down.

Deidara turned to him. "I'm going to paint this, un. She had an eye for beauty. She made her end a work of art. I can respect that, un." He headed for the door. "Are you coming Itachi?"

"No, I want to have a better look now everyone is gone."

"Suit yourself, I'll tell Kisame and Pein you won't be back tonight then, un." With that he was gone.

Itachi stood very quietly. Everyone had gone, even the victim. So finally, Itachi payed his respects to the area that held this woman's soul. Her presence, of all places was felt here most. It always was. He had seen his parents in grief over Sasuke and his death, his room lay untouched, for months and months. The final remains were not in the ashes in the urn, spread to the winds, but in the places where this person had existed. _When we are gone, we are only remembered in the hearts of others_.

We live only through them.

Itachi sighed and uncrossed his arms, moving out of the living room, past the kitchen to her bedroom. She had slept in it and not bothered to make the bed. It struck him as odd. Everything else was so clean, and so neatly placed that it had seemed like it had been merely set like a stage for them, a token action to give better bearings - but this bed, the bedspread a starch white with red embroidery and odd black line pattern, was a heaped lump at the bottom of the bed, half fallen to the floor. The room smelt like her, or what she had smelt like: red wine, poppies and heavy incense.

"Kurenai Yuuhi. Kurenai Sarutobi by marriage." He looked at the room, the bed that had only evidence of one person sleeping in it. "Husband: died in action three months ago."

He turned out of the room, just as his cellphone rang. "Itachi speaking."

"Sup', Itachi."

"Deidara?"

"Yeah, sorry, I know you don't like it when you go into Investigation Zen Mode, but the autopsy people rang me, and told me something I knew you'd probably want to know."

"That is...?"

"She was pregnant, Itachi. Four months. It's why she looked bloated... and I don't know how to say this, but... she plugged herself up to make sure the baby wouldn't drop when... yeah. It's where the blood was coming from."

"Shit."

"Yeah, er. I'll let you get back to Zen time now." The phone hung up and Itachi put it back in his pocket.

He looked at the blood stain in the living room again. He'd called it blood of life - he hadn't _known_. It trickled into the cracks of the floor boards. Flat and non-reflective against the polished wood. _Shit_. Suddenly the smell of rancid blood and alcohol was too much. It was choking Itachi, worse than- than- Out, out now. He wasn't a lesser man. He walked to the door, calmly. Down the elevator, out of the apartment block, into the street and his car. No emotion flittered onto his face. Half an hour later, Itachi reached home, found the closest bathroom and threw up.

* * *

When Itachi dreamed, for the first time in so many years, the dream was different. Sasuke was here. Itachi's hand was on his wrist. Sasuke was standing alone in the black and the river was now a stream.

"Aniki." he said.

There were no hundreds of dead. No fighting and unspoken, only ever clear words. Just them and the black.

Sasuke looked more content than Itachi could remember him alive. "Aniki, you've got to stop this."

"Sasuke..."

Sasuke smiled, all of a sudden, he was a small child again, seven years old and wanting to play with his toy cars. "Please, please save me Aniki. I don't want to-"

Itachi gripped Sasuke's hand tightly, in a death grip almost. "Of course I won't, Sasuke, I'm your big brother."

"Please, Aniki, _please_."

Sasuke was fading, his hand slipping out of Itachi's, drawing back. The stream was turning back into a river and they were all too suddenly stretched further apart than hands could reach.

"_Sasuke_!"

* * *

The alarm clock screamed and Itachi sat up in bed. Everything whirled and he reminded himself that Sasuke was no longer here with him. Not going to walk into his room and say that there was a monster in his bed - not that Sasuke had done that for years before his death. He had tried to convince himself he wasn't scared of the dark. Itachi knew different.

However much time later, Itachi was back at the office. Kisame was waiting with a cup of coffee.

"They're positive its suicide. It's up to us to work out why she poisoned _and_ hung herself."

"Perhaps she thought the poison wouldn't work - as a safety precaution, perhaps." Itachi said after he felt the hot burn of the coffee all the way down his throat. "I'm not sure."

They took their seats and waited. For a clue, for an idea. However, the hours rolled by, and nothing made any more sense than from when they had started. The clock clicked by, and so far Itachi had found out three things. The first was that her husband, Asuma Sarutobi, was of old blood and held the position of President's guard. He was a strong man, and seemed was a personal friend of many influential men. Two, the man had died only a few months ago, shortly after finding out about his wife's pregnancy. Lastly, there was only one next of kin - Kurenai's family were all from Europe, and mostly dead or had never heard of her - was a nephew of Asuma's, Konohamaru.

Despite seeming separated, Kurenai was beloved by three people Itachi was most unsuspecting of: The Hyuuga heiress, a renowned dog breeder and an entomologist. Apparently she had taught them when she had still been teaching at the local university.

The girl, Hinata had broken down, the other two holding her hand. Itachi and Kisame traded glances.

"It just d-doesn't make any sense," she sobbed. "Kurenai-sensei wanted this child, so much for Asuma-san, if not for herself. I don't understand why she did this."

"So she cared greatly for Asuma?"

Hinata gave no answer, but Shino, the calmest of the bunch, did. "Kurenai-sensei was a very private person. She kept her problems to herself, did not seek assistance and firmly believed that once something was, it could never be undone. That you should move on to fix the things you could instead."

"Did you think she was having any problems - with dealing with Asuma's death? Or anyone else's, perhaps-' Itachi started, but when his words left his mouth, they apparently sounded a little more harshly than intended, judging from the growl from Kiba's throat, the slight indentation on Shino's brow and Hinata's horrified expression.

"What my colleague Uchiha means, is that... well, often women who fall into this position without their husbands' pay check, they sometimes look for another man to support them, sometimes the wrong man, or fall in with money lenders and that nearly always goes bad quickly." Kisame finished with a quick smile, reassuring them, _no ill will on your teacher, we just need to know._

Kiba's frown deepened. "No, my family is full of strong women. I know them when I see them. She didn't _need_ support from anyone. She had her money; she was a university professor for crying out loud. As for the men she'd ever shown interest in... well, they were men like _you_. She even dated Kakashi _Hatake_ for awhile." That made them blink in surprise slightly. "Strong people that would show her equal respect for her abilities. She demanded nothing less. No man that would have hit her around and gotten away with it." Kiba finished, even more agitated.

There was a silence as Itachi wrote everything down.

"Is there anyone else you think we should talk to? Or anything else you'd like to mention?"

Hinata nodded. "Shikamaru Nara."

"Nara, really?"

"He was like... a protégé of Asuma's. They were very close. Even after Asuma... well, Asuma told him to look after Kurenai; no one knew that she was pregnant at this point - so Asuma told him to look after her, in his place. He always made sure to either call or visit her once a week."

"Right, so is there anything else?"

Hinata shook her head. "No... But do you really suspect murder?"

"We aren't supposed to talk about it-" Itachi began.

Again, Kisame cut across him, "- We aren't sure. At this point we can't cancel out anything. Certain things don't add up for a straight suicide, so we are digging to find the bottom of it – until it makes sense. If it _is_ murder, we'll find out who did it."

They nodded at him, a certain amount of hope and doubt showing in their faces. Just before they left the room, Shino turned after waiting for the other two to leave the room "Before she passed... Kurenai said she wasn't sleeping well, and that she had been having strange dreams... I am not sure it helps."

After they were gone Kisame leant back on the wall. "This makes even less sense, Itachi. Kurenai obviously was sane, and if she was as independent as they say she is... nothing makes sense."

Itachi rubbed his temples, arms leaning on his desk. He stared at the screen in front of him, and Sasuke stared back, giving his not-smile from the other side of the computer.

"Ring Nara and Hatake, ask them to come in this week. I'm going to have another look around her apartment." He hadn't been back since Deidara had rung him.

* * *

Itachi was aware that once again, he was dreaming. It was so rare for him to even notice anymore - normally it was like stepping into an old movie theatre that only ever played the same thing on its black and white flickering screen with many words but no sounds. But this, this didn't even start like his normal dreams.

He was descending; floating in the blackness, but certainly going down. Below him the river was looming, and absently he wondered if he was going break his legs when he hit its shallow rocky bed. But what he heard over it all, was a song. He could _hear_ a woman singing. The words were so old it made his bone ache at their fear of passing on. If he had been aware of anything but the ache he might have trembled, but instead he closed his eyes, blocking out the light of the stream that illuminated nothing.

His feet hit the water, but it was off, there were no dead to stand next him, no dead to wait for him. There was just the river. Going on and on.

_Sasuke?_

_He is not here._

_But you are. _

He felt a noose around his neck pull very tight.

* * *

He woke on the bed of her otherwise immaculate house. The house seemed to rock for a moment - like he was hung over, his throat was sore and it hurt to move his head.

The house still smelt like wine. Strong and sweet. No blood remained, no ugly reminders, just a resigned warmth that pulled around him, never touching him but always there. He knew Konohamaru was coming to remove everything from the house, but he was not sure when. Going out of the room, he walked towards out of the kitchen that connected via a small dining room, to her small lower level courtyard.

He blinked at what he saw. Some part of him expected, for a woman so deeply in love with dark red things like her dark red eyes, for her garden to be full of those same coloured roses. So dark with that colour they seemed to sap your concentration right off anything else. Covered in thorns that seemed only to scratch at pale flesh to find the blood underneath, and trickle it about. Instead, Itachi found poppies.

_I misjudged, Yuuhi-san, it is not vengeance you seek, it is a memory._

"Mind if I smoke?"

"No."

Shikamaru pulled the packet of smoke out of his top pocket. Carefully holding it to the lips he flicked the lighter.

"That's Asuma's lighter isn't it?" Itachi commented.

Shikamaru nodded. "It's the only one I kept."

There was more silence as Shikamaru smoked his cigarette, the soft smoke clouding in soft whisps. "I don't remember her doing anything odd - but she seemed so tired all the time." He began without prompting. "But the day before, she seemed so happy. Like she was with Asuma."

Itachi nodded. "Did she say anything - mention anything out of the ordinary?"

"No, she didn't say anything. Just that she kept having this dream, but she said that the sound of running water was the only way she could sleep anymore."

Itachi glanced up. "Running water?"

"Yeah like... streams. She used to imagine streams, and it would help her to sleep, she said."

"... She seemed to tell you an awful lot." Kisame mused, raising an eyebrow.

Shikamaru scrunched up his nose. "Not like that, it was just... Asuma told me to look after her. We were on an assignment together, when he died. Kurenai, well she is - _was_- a very private person. She just shut down on everybody when he died, so I did my best to check on her. She started talking to me, I think mostly because she wanted to make sure her child had a father figure of some kind. But she never went after me in any other way, if that's what you are thinking."

Itachi wrote it all down.

"I heard you are the smartest of your generation... You've got to understand that a lot of things about this case don't make sense." Kisame continued.

Shikamaru nodded. "I've been confused myself," he stubbed out his cigarette. "Nothing about it makes much sense. To be honest, I had suspected she might... after the child was born, but it was hard to tell. Kurenai was... never open about how she felt. Especially towards the end; she seemed so haunted."

"What was her relationship with Asuma like?"

"Odd. Asuma had his work cut out for him," He smirked, "she was a woman that didn't actually need him at all; it was very hard to impress her... But somehow he did - I believe it took a very expensive bottle of wine, and I mean _very- _troublesome to obtain-and a box of chocolates, and one very, _very_ drunk night." Shikamaru shrugged. "After that it was like they had been together forever. It wasn't an explosive relationship, nothing crazy about it. Kurenai- she came from Europe, and through her childhood had dodged some nasty things, and Asuma was a military man. They didn't want to waste time." He stopped speaking and seemed to fall into some kind of contemplation.

The clock ticked. Of all the things Itachi could of felt - he felt tired most of all.

* * *

Itachi had tried to not sleep beyond what was necessary. He dreamed of Kurenai - such long dreams, too. He had never known of her before four weeks ago. Never heard her speak or laugh, nor cry and scream. But now he knew all of it, he knew it with such clarity.

It scared him. His dreams of so long were disrupted. There was no dead to pull at his clothes, no silence with too many words. There was Kurenai - instructing her students at the front of a long hall, marking assignments, sleeping, walking, _breathing, _like Itachi didn't know he had seen her hung up from the roof, framed, picture perfect.

Her beauty in death was nothing to her magnificence in life.

But the dream that troubled him most, was the dream of her and Asuma. It was far too personal. Her legs braced around him, well manicured nails digging into his toned muscles. She didn't scream and thrash about. Her body arched up so _so_- her voice and her moans and the dark grunts of Asuma bled into each other and Itachi recoiled. It's too close, too private, _Itachi doesn't do intimate,_ Itachi doesn't see people so refined to each other's presence that when Kurenai does moan, loudly and her whole body shakes, her fingers grip into Asuma's shoulder they she doesn't ever register when he flips her underneath him, just stays in time with him. Everything about them is so together

- that what jars him most is their breathing,

- is that _his_ is out of sync with theirs.

Itachi knows he'll never have that completeness with another. Some part of him rejects it more totally then anything he has before. He'll never give up that part of himself.

* * *

He gives up his sanity instead, it seems.

* * *

Kurenai didn't seem the openly demanding type it is why he knows - when he sees her for the first time, standing behind Pein, reading over his shoulder - that she'll be patient with him. She won't ask, she'll just wait. She wants something from him, but he doesn't know what it is. So he'll just ignore her, to begin with.

She's watching him and he knows it. She watches him and then watches others. Leaning over them as if she has every right to be there. She laughs with them, is serious with them, but always waiting for Itachi. If he leaves the office, she comes with him. He's looking at her now. Through the rear vision mirror of the car. They make eye contact though he pretends it's nothing. Kisame notices his constant glances.

"Itachi - is there something wrong? Are we being followed?"

Itachi shakes his head and changes gears, eyes going back to the road and saying nothing.

Itachi finds that he isn't bothered by it - that he is no longer sure if he is awake or dreaming, because he sees Kurenai in both now. He follows her sometimes; around her campus, around her apartment, around shopping centres. He knows the dreams he prefers most - _her with a glass of wine, standing in the lounge room where he would eventually find her, arms akimbo, just swaying to the record on, with nothing and no one but him to watch_ - and the dreams he prefers least - _this time its in the chair her hair is half pinned up, but with one long lock falling down her bare back. He can't see much of Asuma, mostly all he notices is the rough hands holding her hips._

She follows him, crying with the people he interviews - trying to consoul in anyway she can. Her hands reaching for whoever was in front of her, running her dream hands over their tear striken faces. Her saddness when they weren't comforted, they only seemed to get colder. She walked out of the room sometimes, but he didn't watch her - he had this to focus on.

Some days they are just following each other. Blind leading blind. They know each other's lives so well now - that when one forgets, the other can just pick up where the other one left off.

* * *

Itachi is no longer sure how many days- weeks- months, have passed. It is the day of the funeral, so it could not have been that long, Itachi knows. It had been put off, for autopsies and all sorts of delays. Her remaining family had come - just as dark and mysterious as Kurenai was, with only four words of English between them.

It is, he supposes, time to actually try and figure out what is wrong.

* * *

This time he knows he is dreaming. He can hear her swimming - and Sasuke. Sasuke is standing. He is holding his hand out, reaching beyond him. Eyes calm and flat. There is some emotion there - like taking a live wire into a bath with you. The type of emotion that you only get to feel once and hold ever in memory.

The stream - no, it's wide enough to be a river now. The dead are playful. They pull at his clothes, at his hair, and gently rake their nails across his cheeks. They are giggling and laughing, rejoicing. They say: _Welcome Itachi. You are so welcome, Brother._

Then he sees her, she is dressed as they always are: in white. It could be more cliché, but he is not sure he cares anymore. As a goddess or disciple, neither fits yet neither is wrong. She walks across the flat stones of this stream and he is caught at the way the water splashes around her ankles, the way that with each even step, the water will drip back down her feet. He's watched her feet come all the way closer to him. In front of him. He doesn't look up.

There is more laughter - more joy around him. _Another, another, she is another._

He just sees her smile; he doesn't want to see her eyes. Her quiet little hidden kiss lips. Her long thin fingers shoo away the feeling of touches of before with a simple brush. The board is cleared and everything comes down to the water running over him and her brighter-than-life-and-death smile.

Itachi supposes that this dream may be the last he has - and it will be forever the best he has.

The kiss seemed an extension of her, more like she was giving him something - the live wire in the bath. The ending credits after a tragedy film. The moment that a great change happens. Her fingers press into his skull and Itachi feels a child to her.

* * *

The dream snaps apart and Kurenai Yuuhi is dead once more.

* * *

She is standing next to the priest, eyes so bright against the black, green and white of this old cemetery.

There are two caskets - much to everyone's continued horror. One so small it shouldn't be a casket at all. Hinata is holding onto Shino and Kiba, tears just quiet and sliding down her face now. Kakashi behind her, among others connected however distantly. That brat friend of his brother and the silly girl with pink hair.

He is right at the front, as they stand around. Soft words of eulogy are spoken - _such tragedy,_ the priest says, _such life is lost_.

It is drawing to a close now, so quiet and so still. The coffin is being lowered and Kurenai is beginning to cry, like she is finally beginning to understand. Only Itachi can hear her cry. Crying is to harsh a word even.

No, Kurenai is weeping. She is weeping as a woman who now understands that there is nothing left, nothing more - that this is the end. Itachi realises now as well, these endless day dreams that cared not for day or night were finally over.

Itachi knows he has one last thing to do.

* * *

He gets into his car - just as he did when he was first called and she gets in beside him (through the door, not by opening it - because she is just a dream, a ghost, a nightmare after all). One hand drives, and the other is now holding hers. She's real now, not just his imagination after all. He knows because he can hold her like he knew she held Asuma.

It's quiet; cars buzz past but the sound of apprehension is louder. He feels somehow that he has done this before - and from the way she smiles, he knows she feels the same. It's not that far from the cemetery to her apartment locked up so many stories above them. He wonders if anyone has cleaned out the apartment yet. He is calmed to find they haven't.

Stepping inside it is dark all but for a stream of light leaving four squares illuminated on the ground. She's still holding his hand. He notices that she is almost exactly as she was at the time of her death: her belly slightly swollen, hair and makeup perfect and in place. Actress waiting for her encore. Kurenai Yuuhi, getting ready to die, on her final stage.

"Kurenai?" He asks of her. She nods and points to the chair to the side that he has seen so many times in dreams and this other reality he resides in now. He sits, and waits for her.

She's doing this for him. Itachi has never been the one for the arts. Time and patience had better occupations, but he has never been so apprehensive for one. She's quiet, moving about. Music begins to play and she watches the light move around the room. In her hand is the glass of wine. He watches her put those little drops of poison into her glass, swirl them around with her finger. Stare at it a quiet moment before coming to him. She kneels in front of him, half leaning over his lap. Her thin fingers holding the cup like it is the Grail and she offers it to him. "For you, I don't want you to live like me."

He pushes the cup away. "It's not my time, yet."

She accepts that, and not breaking her eye contact, takes the drink herself. Not a drop is spilt. Her lips are a deeper red for it, her eyes sunken back and her breathing is coming quicker now. Words start coming from her mouth and Itachi begins to understand, truly now.

"- I saw you, after Asuma was gone. I saw you once in the street. You were so alone and yet it was like you saw me too." She starts, still half lent over him. "After that, I couldn't stop seeing you. Every night and every day and I felt such solace, that not even the thought of my child could give me." Her hands, now free from holding the glass slip forward and grab his hips. Like he had watched Asuma do to her. "I felt truly warm like I had not done for so long, and I knew that you did too. I knew that you saw me, in every dream I had of you. I know that you see me now, and that some part of me could never have this child while I am still standing in the river of death."

She stills, holding him awkwardly. Her head is turned away.

"Kurenai, you mustn't-"

"No, Itachi Uchiha. These are the first words we've spoken. For so long I dreamed of rivers and Asuma waiting for me - but then I dreamed of you. I _must _have. I thought of dying after the child was born, but it would only be even more alone; it's much better with me, on the other side - with Asuma. Thank you, Itachi."

He isn't sure how else to show his thanks but as the light finally starts to slide out of the room, he grabs her, still not quite sure what is going to happen, and kisses her. She's soft and slightly cold. Her breath is coming faster, and it's like she is trying to suck some of his life back into her. The room seems empty and far away and Kurenai seems close and he tries to pull her closer still. To have and to hold. She braces her hands on his shoulders as he leans forward to her.

They simply just kiss, with whatever Itachi has left to give and what little time she has left to accept it.

When pushes away from him, she smiles and strokes his cheek. She might cry but Itachi doubts it. She just reassembles the room, just as it was that night, telling him that she knew this was going to happen, she saw it all through Itachi - just like Itachi saw it all through her. The last thing is the rope that she loops up and around.

Itachi doesn't try to move. She can barely stand now. Her scene is set and Kurenai is no longer smiling at him, but she doesn't quite look sad either.

She simply looks resigned.

* * *

Itachi is holding her body now, her eyes are turned skyward.

He waits till she breathes in and doesn't breathe out.

Gently he lets her go, avoiding the blood that has slowly started to slide down her leg.

As he straightens her dress, he knocks the shoe off, hearing the sound of it clatter to the ground, Itachi stares.

Finally, he takes a step back. Looking at her. _Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face._ She's perfect again - dead and made of the finest porcelain.

Walking to the door, he whispers goodnight. He closes the door and leaves Kurenai to sleep.

* * *

Itachi never dreams of rivers again.


End file.
